Analysis of plasma membrane integrity by fluorescent detection of Tl(+) uptake.
Authors:Bowman AM, Nesin OM, Pakhomova ON, Pakhomov AG,
Journal:J Membr Biol
PubMed ID:20623351
'The exclusion of polar dyes by healthy cells is widely employed as a simple and reliable test for cell membrane integrity. However, commonly used dyes (propidium, Yo-Pro-1, trypan blue) cannot detect membrane defects which are smaller than the dye molecule itself, such as nanopores that form by exposure to ultrashort ... More
The Ste20 kinases Ste20-related proline-alanine-rich kinase and oxidative-stress response 1 regulate NKCC1 function in sensory neurons.
Authors:Geng Y, Hoke A, Delpire E,
Journal:J Biol Chem
PubMed ID:19307180
'NKCC1 is highly expressed in dorsal root ganglion neurons, where it is involved in gating sensory information. In a recent study, it was shown that peripheral nerve injury results in increased NKCC1 activity, not due to an increase in cotransporter expression, but to increased phosphorylation of the cotransporter (Pieraut, S., ... More
Lipid nanopores can form a stable, ion channel-like conduction pathway in cell membrane.
Authors:Pakhomov AG, Bowman AM, Ibey BL, Andre FM, Pakhomova ON, Schoenbach KH,
Journal:Biochem Biophys Res Commun
PubMed ID:19450553
Cell permeabilization by electric pulses (EPs), or electroporation, has been well established as a tool to indiscriminately increase membrane flows of water solutes down the concentration and voltage gradients. However, we found that EPs of nanosecond duration (nsEPs) trigger formation of voltage-sensitive and inward-rectifying membrane pores. NsEP-treated cells remain mostly ... More
An ion channel library for drug discovery and safety screening on automated platforms.
Authors:Wible BA, Kuryshev YA, Smith SS, Liu Z, Brown AM,
Journal:Assay Drug Dev Technol
PubMed ID:19090691
Ion channels represent the third largest class of targets in drug discovery after G-protein coupled receptors and kinases. In spite of this ranking, ion channels continue to be under exploited as drug targets compared with the other two groups for several reasons. First, with 400 ion channel genes and an ... More
A new homogeneous high-throughput screening assay for profiling compound activity on the human ether-a-go-go-related gene channel.
Authors:Titus SA, Beacham D, Shahane SA, Southall N, Xia M, Huang R, Hooten E, Zhao Y, Shou L, Austin CP, Zheng W,
Journal:Anal Biochem
PubMed ID:19583963
Long QT syndrome, either inherited or acquired from drug treatments, can result in ventricular arrhythmia (torsade de pointes) and sudden death. Human ether-a-go-go-related gene (hERG) channel inhibition by drugs is now recognized as a common reason for the acquired form of long QT syndrome. It has been reported that more ... More